PlayStation Move sharp shooter Origins – Part One

+ Posted by Victor Zuylen on May 27, 2011 // Editor, Killzone Community

By now you’ve probably read a thing or two about the PlayStation Move sharp shooter – like the fact that it has a digital trigger, a pump-action grip, and an authentic form factor. But did you know that it originally started life as a side project for Killzone 3’s game director? In this two-part article, we look at the origins of the sharp shooter and the people behind it.

“We were at a game convention where the PlayStation Move was being demonstrated,” Guerrilla Games Director Mathijs de Jonge recalls. “We had several Helghast performers walking the show floor, and one of them decided to have a go at the PlayStation Move demo booth.”

For Mathijs, the image of a big, intimidating Helghast soldier waving about an innocuous game peripheral just felt off. “I could scarcely imagine him playing a game like Killzone that way,” Mathijs says. “He looked like he should be holding something resembling a weapon – something with a little oomph to it. A peripheral that not only played well, but looked cool at the same time.”

The event got Mathijs thinking about an add-on for the PlayStation Move. “We’d toyed with the idea of designing a Killzone-themed gun peripheral before,” Mathijs says, “but with the introduction of the PlayStation Move, that idea suddenly seemed a lot more feasible. The timing was right as well, because development on Killzone 3 was still in its early stages.”

Early mockups consisted of kitbashed gun peripherals from other platforms.

Mathijs voiced his idea at a Director’s Panel, where Sony Product Design Manager Ennin Huang was also in attendance. Having worked with the SOCOM team on the first Bluetooth headset for PlayStation 3, Ennin was heavily involved with the development of PlayStation peripherals. “After the panel, Ennin approached us and said he very much liked the idea of a solid, realistic-looking Move add-on,” Mathijs says. “He advised us to put together an official proposal and submit it to the Product Design team.”

For his proposal, Mathijs enlisted the help of Guerrilla Lead Concept Designer (and resident weapons expert) Roy Postma. “Mathijs wanted to design a gun peripheral that could represent the majority of firearms in Killzone 3,” Roy says. “We chose the Helghast StA-11 SMG as our starting point: like most weapons in the game it requires two hands to operate, but at the same time it’s quite compact.”

The first mockup housed the navigation controller in the rear grip.

Using foam board, duct tape and pieces of gun peripherals from several different platforms, Mathijs and Roy then constructed a mockup roughly approximating the StA-11’s size and shape. The mockup housed the navigation controller in the rear grip and the Move controller in the barrel, while a trigger mechanism in the fore grip connected to the Move’s T-button. This setup, however, proved impractical.

“When you play Killzone 3 on a DualShock 3 controller, you move around with your left thumb and fire with your right index finger,” Roy explains. “Our first mockup had it the other way around, making the setup somewhat awkward for right-handed people. So I went back to the drawing board to design a clip/fore grip that could house the navigation controller. I also moved the firing trigger back to the rear grip, where it normally resides on an StA-11.”

Instead of relying on a complicated (and possibly error-prone) physical pass-through mechanism to bridge the distance to the Move’s T-button, the trigger could simply be wired up to the Move’s extension connector digitally. This solution allowed Roy to add additional buttons to the body of the peripheral, saving players from having to reach for the Move controller in the barrel whenever they wanted to reload or swap weapons.

In the meantime, Mathijs worked on the proposal document, outlining the type of user experience he had in mind for the gun peripheral. “I wanted players to experience a sense of joy as soon as they picked up the peripheral,” Mathijs says. “It not only had to look cool and authentic, I also wanted it to feel like a weapon. It had to enhance the overall experience of playing a shooter on the PlayStation 3.”

Check back next week for the second part of sharp shooter Origins, in which the Guerrilla team gets help from their friends at Zipper Interactive!

Very interesting read since I recently just picked up the Sharp Shooter. It plays pretty well for SOCOM 4 too once you memorize the different button layout. And you get the advantages of the laser attachment and single, 3 round burst and fully auto quick settings for almost every weapon.

The sharpshooter is sweet, but with 3D, and the sharpshooter, instead of immersion I find myself distracted from the fine details of the game.

So much more conscious thought required to hold the gun up, and still.

With the DS3, all you do is not push a button to stay still, with the Move you have to have nerves of steel.

Its really great for sniping, but not so great for close quarters, turning is impeded, and the melee is hard to perform quickly or consistantly. Not to mention that the camera goes nuts when you try to melee, this is fail.

The reload works good though, just wish they still let us use a button to melee, and wish the move had a analog stick on it to allow you to turn independantly of the aim.

I have the Guncon3 and it works much better due to its dual analog sticks, only supported by one game though!!!

Exactly dude. I’m too lazy to type all that after thinking about it, but that’s why it doesn’t work for me. I haven’t tried it with SOCOM and maybe the 3rd person camera will make turning/aiming easier and more natural. With KZ3 it wasn’t happening. Just too demanding.

I agree with Airwakinman17…people should just calm down…it will be up soon. those of you that are sweating it for the store to be down have a problem…you should just trade your PS3 in and leave us alone.

I really like my sharpshooter. There is only a couple of issuses I have. I wish the stock would stay locked in both directions. Lock so you can’t push it in and pull it out anymore. I wish that the tension for the reload that you pull towards you was a little stiffer to, because when I turn to the left I have a tendency to accidentally pull the navigation stick in towards me which causes me to reload when I don’t want to. Both of these i can live with. But the sharpshooter definitely makes Killzone 3 very enjoyable its the only way I play. Oh and one question is a scope or some sort of sights be made for the sharpshooter? Just wondering since the rail system is there and everything, and that would be really cool just saying

@shadow the reason some people like population control has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that some people are stupid. its simply because there are way too many f*****g people in the world and we just keep on breeding anyway.

Great story on the development of the sharp shooter. I have played many hours of Killzone 3 with sharp shooter and love it. I tried to play with the dualshock but did not like it. Recently I had the pleasure to play Killzon 3 in 3D with the sharp shooter. I thought I died and was in gamer heaven.

I’m always been curious about the Sharp Shooter because I love how precise PS Move feels but I’m always having the same issue. How to decide to purchase a product that cost 40 bucks without trying it first?

I ‘m glad we get to see the early stages of developement . Because I LOVE the SharpShooter. I always wonder how they began the developement of the PSS. In my opinon the SS is the #1 peripheral for the PlayStation Move. :)

i hate when people come on here brown nosing and sticking up for a corporation like they have stock in it. even if you do have a stock a person can say what they want about the store. i have more respect for the ones that stand tall then the ones that sheep there way through life by conforming to everything these corporations and governments
tell the people. viva la revolution.

I have no faith in Move gaming. We’re going on the 4th decade of poor support for light gun gaming.

It is ridiculous that light gun gaming peaked with Duck Hunt and the Sega Genesis Menacer. The Wii was massively successful in totally failing to get motion control right.

The games are either so half-assed, gimmicky, or overambitious that they’re just not fun. Then there are instances where motion control schemes are shoveled into games unbidden and we’re forced to play with them, like those stupid Sixaxis segments in Ratchet & Clank and other games.

I can’t expect anyone to get motion gaming right if they can’t get light gun gaming right.

WHERE IS THE STORE!!! Why are all the platformers copying the Wii? I just want the standard controller, you will never see the best games have Move. why does everybody want motion controllers, it just reminds me of the Wii I will never play. please friend Sarge435. How long does it take to get the store back? Everything else was back up 2 weeks ago.

I got the sharpshooter yet its just laying in a storage chest collecting dust because the playstation eye toy wont stay straight for starters, sitting on my couch and trying to calibrate the move with the sharpshooter is a pain and to do it every single time you turn on your ps3 is an even more inconvenience. I do believe it is quite an interesting piece to add to my ps3 collection yet i doubt i will ever use it because i will not stand up for hours on end playing socom 4 just so the cross hairs actually stay in the center of the screen, while i sit down the cross hairs just are too low

thats interesting to know that it was made that way but sony muct remember 1 thing that thing is dont devolup too much stuff or else you’ll make make your users look like upgraded wii fans. lol. anyways good luck with all xbox haters and getting up the store:) best of luck-bradley

to stay on the actual topic:
I’ve used move with the sharpshooter attachment/addon w.e.
to be honest, I’m not much of a fan. It’s a great idea, and I love the ingenuity the folks at Gorilla and Zipper and everyone else involved, I prefer the duelshock more. I consider gaming to be a “sit back, relax” type of activity. I appreciate the wellness concern by the creators of move and shp shooter, but I’d much rather sit down and just exercise my thumbs and leave the work out for the gym =]

I really enjoyed this post. It is kind of cool to me to see how things like this come together. I would love to see the early prototypes of the classic consoles, controllers and such. Those belong in the gaming hall of fame for sure!

As far as using the sharp shooter, I haven’t adapted to it as well as I would like but I am getting there.

This is pretty sweet, reminds me of the wii zapper(which is kinda buggy itself) Love the move because its just like the wii, adding more variety of motion based games. Once I get the move ill prob check this out if it works better by then XP

Off topic XP

@1/23 Tho off topic I agree.

I dont play sony games for their online crap. Im not one of those shooter fan boys, I play action rpg’s and stuff like that. I want the store up so I can get my dam dlc for my games that I bought >.> I could give 2 craps about the free stuff at the moment.

What about all the people that bought L.A. Noire and got the dlc with it? They cant even redeem their codes.

Tho in all truth, the store is “SUPPOSED” to be up in the next couple days. So a little patience cant hurt. Been waiting awhile now for my dlc a few more days wont hurt. Ill just play my other games on my ps3 or psp/wii/360/ds/3ds/ps2/ipod.